Neek makes a living piloting the dilapidated tramp transport, Mercy’s Pledge, and smuggling questionable goods across systems blessed with peace and prosperity. She gets by—but only just. In her dreams, she is still haunted by thoughts of Ardulum, the traveling planet that, long ago, visited her homeworld. The Ardulans brought with them agriculture, art, interstellar technology…and then disappeared without a trace, leaving Neek’s people to worship them as gods.

Neek does not believe—and has paid dearly for it with an exile from her home for her heretical views.

Yet, when the crew stumbles into an armed confrontation between the sheriffs of the Charted Systems and an unknown species, fate deals Neek an unexpected hand in the form of a slave girl—a child whose ability to telepathically manipulate cellulose is reminiscent of that of an Ardulan god. Forced to reconcile her beliefs, Neek chooses to protect her, but is the child the key to her salvation, or will she lead them all to their deaths?

Guest Post:I’m so excited to be able to share a character bio of the main character. Neek sounds like someone that is not only fascinating, but also someone you’d want to spend time with. Read and enjoy!
The Neek people give up their individual names upon puberty, as they take their religious vows to Ardulum and attempt to become symbolically closer to the traveling planet. Clarifiers are used instead, which can vary by person.

As our Neek is the only one of her species off-world she chooses to go simply by ‘Neek’ instead of her official clarifier of ‘Exile’. She’s not entirely forthcoming as to the specifics of her exile from her homeworld, but is adamant that the Ardulan religion is a joke and that the Neek culture is stagnating in its wake.

Neek is bipedal, with copper-colored skin and blondish-red hair that is often tied tightly back from her face. Unlike a Terran, she has eight fingers per hand, which uniquely equips her to pilot the heavily-modified Terran shuttle Mercy’s Pledge. Like all Neek, she secretes empathic mucous primarily from her fingertips, the viscosity of which is a clear indicator of her mood.

The captain of the Pledge, Yorden Kuebrich, would confirm that Neek is a hell of a pilot, but make an offer to buy out her contract and you’re likely to find the Risalian sheriffs sniffing into your affairs and your shipping contracts evaporating as fast as the stuk from Neek’s fingers.

She looked out the viewscreen just in time to see the Pledge—her engines dead—exit the Callis Wormhole into the middle of a much-unexpected dogfight. A wedge-shaped Risalian skiff zipped past the Pledge, catching the edge of the ship on its wing, and started her into a slow spin. A pod, deep purple and about half the size of the skiff, chased the skiff and grazed their starboard flank. Neek braced herself against the console and heard Yorden tumble into the wall behind her, his substantial girth denting the aluminum.

Mentally cursing the ship’s poor artificial gravity, Neek launched herself into the pilot’s chair, grabbed the yoke, and scoured the latest damage report. “Aft stabilizer is shot,” she called out after checking the computer. Other skiffs near them suddenly swooped back into a larger group, and the Pledge was, for the moment, left alone. Neek released the yoke and let her fingers move deftly over the interface. “Those new spray-on cellulose binders for the hull are holding, but only just. What’s left of the Minoran armor plating is now officially cracked beyond repair.”

She swiveled to see the captain buckling himself into a much larger version of her own chair. His brown hair puffed about his head, per usual, but his body language spoke of surprise and tension. That concerned Neek because Yorden was old enough to have lived through actual conflicts. If anyone knew how to react in a situation like this, it was him.

“Were we just attacked?” she asked incredulously. Neek took a closer look out the viewscreen. The rectangular cutter that sparkled with pinpricks of light and the wedge-shaped, agile skiffs were Risalian. The pods—both the smaller purple ones and the frigate-sized, maroon ones—were unfamiliar. Their formations were just as strange, stacked in columns like stones on a riverbank instead of in pyrimidal and spherical formations like Systems ships would. “Are those all Charted Systems ships?”

Yorden threw up his hands in disgust. “They’re not just Charted Systems ships—they’re Risalian ships. The cutter and skiffs are, anyway. No clue on the pods. What those blue-skinned bastards are doing out here with fully weaponized ships, I can only guess. However, they’re firing lasers. If we lose our armor and take a hit from any of those, we are space dust.”

“Comforting,” Neek mumbled. She hadn’t noticed the laser ports on any of the ships, but now that she looked closer, all of the vessels were covered with armor plating and had at least two laser turrets each.

Neek continued to watch as the pods begin to cluster around a Risalian cutter. A pod ship zipped beneath the cutter, firing wildly at its underside, before making a quick right turn and heading back to a larger pod. Five others followed suit. The cutter’s shielding began to splinter, but the ship remained where it was.

Neek leaned towards the viewscreen, still unsure what she was seeing. “The Risalian ships aren’t chasing, they’re just defending. What is going on? If they’re going to appoint themselves sheriffs of the Charted Systems, they could at least fight back.”

Yorden smacked his hand against the wall, loosing a shower of dust. “Something on that Risalian ship is holding their attention. Get us out of here, before either of them gets any closer.” He pointed to a cluster of ships to Neek’s right, and her eyes followed. Little flashes of bright light sparked and then died intermittently as ships were destroyed, their flotsam creating an ever-expanding ring. A large piece of metal plating floated past the Pledge’s port window. The edge caught and left a thin scratch in the fiberglass as it slid off.

“What are they protecting that is so damn important?” Neek wondered out loud and then snorted. “Something worth more than our hold full of diamond rounds and cellulose-laced textiles?” she added cheekily.

Scowling, Yorden pushed Neek’s hand away from the computer and began his own scan of the Pledge’s systems. “Communications are still up, but I don’t think either party is listening right now.” Frustrated, he kicked the underside of the console. “Try one of them. Better than being crushed.”

“Captain, come on. We are dead in space. If another one comes at us, why don’t we just fire at it? It’s better than being rammed.” She pointed upwards at a circular hole in the ceiling. “What’s the benefit of flying a ship so ancient it falls apart if you’re not taking advantage of the grandfathered weapons system?”

Yorden’s terse response was cut off when a short burst impacted the ship. Another group of skiffs flew past, depositing laser fire as they did so. The Pledge banked to port, carrying momentum from the impact. From the direction they had come lay a trail of shattered ship plating.

A panicked voice called down from the laser turret. Neek bristled, steeling herself against the inevitable irritation that came whenever their Journey youth spoke. “That skiff just fired at us. How does it even have weapons? I thought we were the only ones in the Systems with a ship older than dirt.”

Neek wrapped her right hand back around the steering yoke. Each of her eight fingers fit perfectly into the well-worn grooves, and the brown leather darkened a shade as her naturally secreted stuk smeared from her fingertips. She smiled to herself. Flying a geriatric tramp was still better than flying nothing at all.

“Look, Captain,” she said, keeping her eyes on the battle. “I can steer this thing if we get pushed, but that is it. We don’t have any other options. They have guns. We have guns. Well, we have a gun. Why don’t we use it?”

Yorden stared at the approaching ships and then took a step back. “I am willing to ignore the illegality of what you are suggesting because I don’t want to spend my retirement as incinerated flotsam. Attracting more attention to ourselves is a terrible idea, but we won’t have a choice if a ship comes at us again.” Neek raised an eyebrow, and Yorden snorted. “Better incarcerated than dead, I suppose.”

A large plume of yellow smoke burst from the far wall panel as Yorden spoke, almost as if the Pledge were agreeing. Two more shots impacted the tramp and sent the small transport into a tight spin. Neek gripped the yoke with both hands and pulled hard, trying to steady the ship. Yorden’s hip smacked the main console, and the thin metal scaffold dented.

“Do it!” he bellowed, rubbing his hip. “We can worry about Risalian consequences for owning weapons if we live past the next ten minutes.” The captain got onto his knees to inspect the new cloud of smoke that was billowing from underneath the console. Neek fanned the computer interface and coughed, attempting to assess the damage. The smell of burning wood wafted towards her, and she suspected some of the new Cell-Tal bindings were on fire.

“I don’t know how to work any of this stuff,” Nicholas yelled back as the sound of frantic button pushing could be heard over the panic in his voice. “I’m just supposed to be observing!”

“Just press buttons until something happens,” Neek called up to him. Her head rolled back slightly as she relaxed the Pledge from a tailspin to a gentle rotation by opening the gas vents. As the internal gravity system began its whirring to adjust to their decreased movement, laser bursts—sporadic and utterly uncoordinated—began to ring from the Pledge’s turret. The bright streaks of yellow light shot in the general direction of the fray.

“Try to aim, Nicholas!” Yorden bellowed over his shoulder. “Did they teach you nothing useful in school? We’re not trying to piss off both fleets, just keep them away from us.” He bent down and opened an access panel beneath the yoke, searching again for the source of the smoke that was now seeping through the upper console.

“Half of these switches don’t do anything!” Nicholas yelled back, his voice muffled by laser fire.

“Why not try hitting the ones that do do something?” Yorden retorted.

“Ha!” Neek exclaimed. She entered the final series of commands with her left hand, and the star field outside the viewscreen stabilized. “Did a little back alley reroute, so I think this waste of space might just stay upright for a little bit. We’re far enough below the battle that maybe we’ll be left alone for a while.”

As Neek finished her sentence, she watched a Risalian skiff break formation and align perfectly with the Pledge. Neek’s breath caught in her throat.

“Uh, Captain?” she said, not wanting to turn around.

“Figure it out, Neek,” came Yorden’s terse response. “If I don’t fix the air quality breaker, we’re going to suffocate to death.”

The skiff edged closer, staying in their direct line of sight. Neek assumed they were being scanned, but with the archaic technology on the Pledge, she had no way to confirm it. She wondered briefly if the pilot on the skiff was staring as intently out the viewscreen as she was. She tried to imagine the mindset it took to fire on an unarmed ship that was dead in space and, as she contemplated, rubbed the back of her head. Of course, the Pledge was not unarmed, but the likelihood of the Risalians having pulled the ship’s registration since their emergence from the wormhole was low. Neek ground her fingertips into her temples. A funny tickle was starting there—one she couldn’t quite place but hoped wasn’t the start of a headache. Likely, it was just residual tension from speaking to her uncle.

A pod disengaged with the Risalian cutter and swooped on top of the skiff, showering it with laser fire. The skiff banked to starboard, avoiding each blast, and then righted. The pod moved to the other side of the Pledge and bobbed around her edges.

“We’re being used as a shield,” Neek muttered. Louder, she yelled, “Nicholas, pick one and just fire already!” The pressure in Neek’s head grew. Irritated, she pressed a stuk-covered finger to the affected area and visualized pushing the pain away.

A ringing sound came from the laser turret. A bright yellow shot appeared from the top of the viewscreen and opened a hole in the skiff’s hull. The ship began to list and, a moment later, exploded when two additional shots were added by the pod.

“I got one!” Nicholas yelled. The sound of his whooping could be heard distinctly through the ceiling. “Take that you tiny skiffs!”

“Get the other one! Don’t stop until—” Neek cut herself off as she took in the battlefront. Nicholas’s destruction of the skiff caused a ripple effect among the others. The rest of the small Risalian skiffs had broken formation and begun flying erratically. Some were running into each other, others simply heading off course. One was listing at an odd angle, expelling occasional bursts of red fuel. The Risalian cutter was left unattended, and the strange pod frigate was closing in.

“Were the skiffs on autopilot?” Neek asked incredulously.

“Autopilot doesn’t work for those kinds of maneuvers,” Yorden responded. “It is only useful for fixed points and straight lines.” Both watched in confusion as the smaller ships continued to drift apart and the largest pod docked with the cutter. “The round ships aren’t firing anymore,” Yorden murmured. “That’s something.”

“Do you want me to keep shooting, Captain?” Nicholas had come down the ladder from the turret and into the main cockpit. He was noticeably shaken, and the sweat stains on his shirt spoke of the stress he had been under moments before. His expression darkened as he asked, “I didn’t kill anyone, did I?”

“Maybe,” Neek responded casually, trying not to think about the implications. She’d forgotten how sensitive Journey youths could be. She tried to mitigate the snark in her tone but couldn’t quite figure out how to do it. “It saved our lives though. Something worth writing home about, anyway.”

Nicholas shifted uncomfortably on his feet but remained uncharacteristically quiet.

A tiny, purple light began to flash at the base of the console. Neek tapped the area. “Incoming hail from the pod that’s docked with the Risalian cutter. You want to answer?”

“The troublemakers are contacting us?” Yorden considered and then shrugged his shoulders as he accepted the hail. “This is Captain Yorden Kuebrich of the Mercy’s Pledge. We’re a tramp ship on our way to Oorin. To whom might we be speaking?”

A grainy image finally materialized on the comm, revealing a hovering, purple-black, spherical being with no apparent appendages, eyes, or mouth. It did, however, have distinctly human-looking ears that protruded from the sides of the sphere.

“That’s a giant, sentient beach ball,” Nicholas stated flatly.

“At least it’s not a traveling planet,” Neek muttered.

Yorden glared at both of them and then turned his attention back to the comm.

The ball creature bobbed up and down twice. A lateral slit formed right in the center of its body and slowly opened.

“We’re off course,” the creature said in perfect Common. “We’ve sustained heavy damage and must dock for repair. As you are also disabled, we can offer you a tow to a planet with repair capabilities.”

Yorden looked quickly to Neek, who shrugged. They had to get a tow from someone. Why not a beach ball? There was no way the Risalians would give them a tow after what they’d just done to their fleet, and they definitely couldn’t just spin near the exit of a wormhole forever.

“That’d be Oorin. We’ve got a pull loop just under the port plating. I’ll have my pilot extend it, and you can latch on however you want.” Yorden gestured at Neek, who, in an exaggerated movement, brought two of her fingers up into an arc and then back down onto a blue button on the far upper section of the console.

“Pull loop extended, Captain. Can we have Nicholas get out and push?”

The young man scowled, but his retort was cut off when the Pledge gave a large jerk as one of the alien pods latched onto the pull loop with a coiled metal rope.

“Prepare for towing,” the sphere said before cutting off the communication.

There was silence in the cockpit for a long moment before Yorden exhaled and slumped into his chair. He leaned back, and the chair reclined, groaning under his weight. “I think that took twenty years off my life. We need to get answers from Chen when we hit the spaceport. If the Charted Systems are being invaded—or whatever just happened to provoke the Risalians—the Systems are not prepared for it.”

“This is just another notch on your belt, I’d imagine, Captain.”

When Yorden didn’t respond, Neek playfully punched him on the shoulder before she settled back and closed her eyes. Notch on his belt, and another irritation on hers. She’d have to put off calling her uncle back for at least a few days now, which wasn’t going to look good on the yearly report. Maybe she should just write this year off altogether and send the president a few recordings of her actual thoughts. Neek grinned. That would be incredibly satisfying but, unfortunately, detrimental to her goal.

At least the funniness in the back of her head was gone. Whatever the last ten minutes had been about, Neek was glad things hadn’t gotten more serious. Hopefully, they would soon be far, far away from the Risalians, their ridiculously overpowered ships, and whatever it was they wanted so desperately to protect.

About J.S.:
J.S. Fields is a scientist who has perhaps spent too much time around organic solvents. She enjoys roller derby, woodturning, making chainmail by hand, and cultivating fungi in the backs of minivans. Nonbinary, but prefers female pronouns. Always up for a Twitter chat.